1. Technical Field
The technology disclosed herein relates to a camera having an image blur correction function.
2. Description of the Related Art
A camera having an image blur correction function in order to suppress the image degradation caused by shaking of the camera (hereinafter also referred to as image blur) was known in the past. Such a camera had an image blur correction unit for driving a correcting lens, a shake detection sensor for detecting shaking of the camera, and a correction controller for controlling the operation of the image blur correction unit according to the output of the shake detection sensor. With this camera, the correcting lens is driven by the image blur correction unit on the basis of the amount of shake detected by the image blur detection sensor, so as to cancel out the image blur caused by this shaking, which means that it is possible to acquire images in which image blur is corrected.
More specifically, with a conventional camera, the X and Y axes, which are perpendicular to the axis of incident light of the optical system, are set with respect to the camera body. This camera has a first shake detection sensor for detecting the angular velocity (shake) of the camera body around the X axis, and a second shake detection sensor for detecting the angular velocity (shake) of the camera body around the Y axis. The correction controller can detect the rotational angle of the camera around the X and Y axes by means of the first and second shake detection sensors. The amount by which the correcting lens is driven is computed by a microcomputer to correct any blurring caused by camera shake. The correcting lens is driven by a drive unit on the basis of this drive amount (see Patent Citation 1, for example).
To correct image blur more accurately, a camera has also been proposed in which translational shake of the camera body is detected in addition to detecting the rotational angle (shake) around the X and Y axes (see Patent Citations 2 and 3, for example). Another camera has been proposed which has a sensor for detecting inclination or the rotational angle (shake) around the optical axis of the camera body (see Patent Citations 4 and 5). With this camera, the imaging element is driven so as to cancel out image blur caused by inclination or shake of the camera body around the optical axis. Consequently, an image can be acquired in which inclination or image blur around the optical axis has been corrected.    Patent Citation 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application H3-37616    Patent Citation 2: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application H3-46642    Patent Citation 3: Japanese Patent No. 3,513,950    Patent Citation 4: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application H6-30327    Patent Citation 5: Japanese Patent Publication H1-53957    Patent Citation 6: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 2004-295027